National Memorial Arboretum - Alrewas - Staffordshire - England

Saturday 1st September 2007

Unveiling - Refurbished Irish Merchant Navy Plaque

and

Memorial Plaque - Deceased Irish Born Merchant Seamen - Bremen Farge 1943-45

Organised by the Irish Seamens Relatives Association (1939-46) Mr Harry Callan kindly travelled to the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire, England, where he unveiled the newly refurbished Irish Merchant Navy plaque dedicated to all who lost their lives on Irish Merchant Ships and Fishing Fleet during world war two. Shipmate Callan also unveiled a memorial plaque recording the names of the 5 Irish Born Merchant  Seamen who lost their lives as a result of Gestapo ill-treatment in the Arbeitsertziehungslager located in Bremen-Farge 1943-45. This has now been affixed to the Irish Merchant Navy Memorial Plinth located in the Merchant Navy Convoy section of the  National Memorial Arboretum. The Irish Seamen's Relatives Association ( 1939-46) are pleased to advise that we are sponsoring a tree together with a memorial plaque to be erected in the Navy Wood Section of the Arboretum, in  memory of Able Seaman Matthew Edgar Callan who was lost on HMS Gloucester on the 22nd May 1941. Able Seaman Matthew Callan is the elder brother of Shipmate Harry Callan and he has no other grave but the sea. At the invitation of the Brotherhood of Veterans of the Greek Campaign of 1940-41, we later attended their annual  service of remembrance where Shipmate Callan placed a poppy wreath in memory of his brother Matthew at the Greek campaign memorial altar in the Arboretum. This completes the Irish born MN Slave Labourer project and we wish to thank all concerned for their support down the years.

†   In Remembrance of Irish Born Merchant Seamen lost in Bremen-Farge   †

They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

"When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say, 
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today"

Research Note: During world war two 32 Irish born Merchant Seamen were forced to work as slave labourers by the Gestapo on the U-Boot Bunker Valentin  located on the river weser in Bremen-Farge. The Gestapo had attempted on several previous occasions to persuade the Irish to sign a bit of paper to indicate they would become frei-arbeiters (free-workers) and work voluntarily for the Nazi regime. Led by Irish born senior merchant navy officers, to a man they refused to sign. Unbeknown to the Irish the Nazi's had immediate plans to send them onto a concentration (KZ) camp for their continual refusal to sign up and work-(frei) voluntarily. Unlike military personnel who were Prisoners of War, a status which immediately on capture attracted the protection of the International Red Cross, the  Irish as merchant seamen and civilians were pursuant to international law never Prisoners of War, consequently they had no protection  from the International Red Cross in Bremen-Farge.  It is to their inestimable credit that our Irish born merchant seamen captured while serving on British merchant vessels resisted the Gestapo effort to recruit them into Nazi propanganda machine. All showed immense courage in the face of the Nazi terror and we will remember in perpetuity those who lost their lives.